As my arteries slowly weep

I can feel it. Creeping up my sides. Slithering through my veins. In my belt, oh yes, definitely there. How my pants don’t snap the same way anymore. There’s less give. A bit more snugness. And I feel heavy. And slow. And lethargic.

When I sweat I smell barbecue sauce.

Thank you Fourth of July. Thank you for my grilled meat overdose.

I awoke Monday to a meat hangover. A coworker asked if I had the meat sweats.

The meat sweats!?! Is that real? Can you get that? I think maybe I did!

Anything is possible after a weekend of gorging on burgers, hot dogs with datil pepper mustard, ribs, pulled pork, turkey burgers, bratwurst, and some mystery substance that may or may not have been intended for consumption. But it was on a stick, so I ate it.

There was not one, but three! cookouts within the span of 24 hours.

Three chances to flood my system with calories and cholesterol and fat and enough charred grizzle to choke a grizzly bear.

What is it about the Fourth of July that brings out the worst in us? It’s like a call-to-arms. In this case, a call-to-meat. As if the holiday celebrates our independence from British Colonial rule and freeing ourselves from the tyranny of boiled and braised meats.

“…that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness, which can only be achieved if we, the people, are given the freedom to roast, or smoke, or grill, or generally burn the heck out of various animal parts as we see fit, as one nation, under God, indivisible, with hearty heapings of cole slaw and baked beans.”

I don’t think it read that way.

But the Fourth does bring out the carnivore in us, and I can’t understand why. Is it the heat — it fries a circuit board in our brain?

Moderation goes out the window. Excess is invited in the front door.

I made pulled pork with a homemade barbecue sauce. My brother a rack of ribs you could have tobogganed on. I had hamburgers the size of Frisbees, and a bratwurst as thick as my forearm. There were homemade French fries. OK, freedom fries. Apple cobblers and ice creams. (I checked to make sure neither was meat flavored. Both were.)

And on and on it went. It was grill overload. I couldn’t escape, no matter where or what time of the day. I went out to work in the yard on the morning of the Fourth and my backyard neighbors had already fired up their grill. It looked like a nuclear reaction chamber, only bigger, and it smelled like heaven.

“You’re killing me,” I grumbled over the fence. “All I had was a bowl of cereal.”

Nine in the morning and I’m fighting the urge to try their barbecued chicken!

“I can’t eat like this anymore,” I told my mother when she questioned why I didn’t want to take more leftovers home. “I’m going clean. Getting’ off the junk.”

“What are you talking about?!?” she said, almost offended. “You used to always eat like this!”

“No, mom. I’m done. Gettin’ help. A new man. I gotta’ break its grasp on me. I gotta’ get this chunk of hot dog out of my aorta. I gotta’ get some more vegetables in me.”

“Vegetables!?!” she said, horrified. “What do you think these molasses-coated baked beans with bacon are?”

She had a point.

But it’s all over. We as a nation have celebrated, and survived, another Fourth. Our pants and our arteries have now paid the price for our freedom. The freedom to consume hamburgers and hot dogs and other grilled meats with liberty and justice for all.